Over 650 officers mark time as OSDs.
Over 650 civil servants, mostly joint secretaries and additional secretaries, are idling away their time as officers on special duty at the public administration ministry where they hardly have any work to do. Besides, 306 bureaucrats, including 104 additional secretaries and 103 joint secretaries have been attached to various ministries as many of them have recently been promoted beyond the sanctioned posts and the government finds no vacancies for them in civil bureaucracy for fresh postings immediately, the official statistics updated on April 15 show. ‘The number of OSDs would have exceeded 900 if the newly promoted officers had not been attached to various ministries/divisions or had not been kept in situ in the field to manage the situation for now,’ said an additional secretary concerned.
Senior secretary to the public administration ministry Kamal Abdul Naser Chowdhury said that the ministry was working out ways to accommodate more officials and reduce the number of OSDs. The situation would improve gradually as a large number of officers would retire in next few months creating vacancies for others, he told New Age on Sunday. ‘This is a temporary problem as we do not have so many vacancies at the levels of joint secretary and additional secretary. We are considering a plan to engage additional secretaries in supervising development projects in the field,’ the secretary said, adding that this would create scope for fresh postings as there were over 1000 development projects. The government on April 6 promoted a total of 873 officials to the rank of deputy secretary, joint secretary and additional secretary, although there were no ‘clear vacancies’ in the approved organogram. Of the newly promoted officers, 231 joint secretaries were promoted to additional secretary, 299 deputy secretaries to joint secretary, and 343 senior assistant secretaries to deputy secretary.
Most the senior officials were either attached to various ministries or made officers on special duty to cope with the situation, said officials concerned. ‘At least 14 additional secretaries have been attached to the public administration ministry against one sanctioned post. Similar is the situation in each ministry at the secretariat after the mass promotion in the administration,’ an official concerned told New Age. The only duty of those dumped as officers on special duty now is to visit the public administration ministry daily for attendance having even no room to sit. They sign the attendance register kept in the ministry’s library and draw their salaries at the end of the month without delivering any services to the public, according to officers. Around 200 of them have been rendered workless for over six years allegedly on political consideration after the Awami League-led government took over for the second consecutive term in January 2014, a senior official said. Of 653 OSDs, two hold the rank of secretary, 77 additional secretaries, 157 joint secretaries, 78 deputy secretaries and 33 senior assistant secretaries.
At least 126 OSDs have been on study leave and another 126 were attached to various ministries, according to the official records. After the latest promotions, the number of additional secretary went up to 453 against 120 approved posts as set out in the formal structure of the administration. There are now 886 joint secretaries against 350 posts and 1,275 deputy secretaries against 830 posts. Many joint secretaries and additional secretaries were already performing duties usually carried out by the deputy secretaries and joint secretaries. Such practice has already created an ‘imbalance and dissatisfaction’ in the civil bureaucracy, several officials observed.
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